“Why I think capacity building to make AGI go well should include spreading EA-style ideas and helping people engage with EA” by Arden Koehler

Note: I am the web programme director at 80,000 Hours and the view expressed here currently helps shape the web team's strategy. However, this shouldn't be taken to be expressing something on behalf of 80k as a whole, and writing and posting this memo was not undertaken as an 80k project.

80,000 Hours, where I work, has made helping people make AI go well [1]its focus. As part of this work, I think my team should continue to:

• Talk about / teach ideas and thinking styles that have historically been central to effective altruism (e.g. via our career guide, cause analysis content, and podcasts)
• Encourage people to get involved in the EA community explicitly and via linking to content.

I wrote this memo for the MCF (Meta Coordination Forum), because I wasn't sure this was intuitive to others. I think talking about EA ideas and encouraging people to get [...]

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Outline:

(01:21) 1. The effort to make AGI go well needs people who are flexible and equipped to to make their own good decisions

(02:10) Counterargument: Agendas are starting to take shape, so this is less true than it used to be.

(02:43) 2. Making AGI go well calls for a movement that thinks in explicitly moral terms

(03:59) Counterargument: movements can be morally good without being explicitly moral, and being morally good is whats important.

(04:41) 3. EA is (A) at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions, (B) explicitly morally focused.

(04:52) (A) EA is at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions

(06:04) (B) EA is explicitly morally focused

(06:49) Counterargument: A different flexible & explicitly moral movement could be better for trying to make AGI go well.

(07:49) Appendix: What are the relevant alternatives?

(12:13) Appendix 2: anon notes from others

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First published:
September 25th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oPue7R3outxZaTXzp/why-i-think-capacity-building-to-make-agi-go-well-should

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.